23

‘Who’s Angelique?’

I didn’t answer him straight away. Part of it is that I didn’t want to answer, but the other part is that I was not entirely sure what the right answer was.

‘Margot, who’s Angelique?’

‘I don’t . . .’ I trailed off. It was gone.

There was a long pause, while he sighed and I stared out of the car window. The sky was a cold, deep blue.

‘Margot, do you know anything about psychology?’

‘I’ve read plenty of pop quizzes in Marie-Claire.’ I folded my arms, trying for defiant, but instead feeling weary, beaten, hunted and utterly bewildered. ‘I’m an agony aunt. And I’ve been sectioned as a danger to myself and others before today. That might be relevant.’

‘Do you know anything about PTSD?’

I frowned at him and swiped at my drying tears. ‘A little.’

‘The interesting thing about post-traumatic stress disorder,’ he continued, glancing sideways, towards the house – the curtain had twitched again – ‘is that it’s a form of extreme anxiety. Soldiers in the field get it. Victims of terrorist attacks.’ He paused, ‘Ra— . . . Assault victims.’

‘Thanks, yes, I get the general idea,’ I snapped. ‘It’s the one where you relive the event over and over.’ I flounced back in the seat, not interested in helping him out. Not interested in having this conversation. Why were we talking about this?

Inside me, a reasonable, rational voice was pointing out that we were having this conversation because I have done something bad, not him.

He thinks he is trying to help you, Margot.

I did not want to be helped. I did not want to be helped in the worst way.

‘Well, yes. And no. Most people relive the events. But sometimes, according to our good friend Greta, when someone is in an unbearably traumatic situation, especially a young person, and there is absolutely no escape for them, they stay sane by cutting their ties to what’s happening to them; they cease to engage with reality and devise a new reality of their own. The mind can only stand so much bad news.’

‘So then what happens?’

He thought for a moment. ‘It depends. Sometimes they simply choose to forget who they are and what happened to them. It’s called dissociative amnesia.’

‘You can do that?’

‘Yes, you can do that. But there’s always a price. You’ll always be fractured, a thing in pieces, with no continuum. You’ll never be whole.’

‘Perhaps wholeness is overrated. We are all different people at different times, a variety of competing ego states,’ I replied. ‘The Greek philosophers were right. No one’s ever really themselves – they are a reflection of their Platonic ideal.’

‘I am not interested in discussing Greek philosophers with you, Margot,’ he said sternly. ‘They are beside the point.’

I sighed. ‘So, what else happens apart from amnesia?’

‘Fugues,’ he said. ‘There can be fugue states. When you wake up somewhere and hours, days, weeks have passed and you can’t account for where you’ve been or what you’ve done.’

I did not reply. I was more troubled than I had ever been.

‘They happen, apparently, in response to triggers.’

‘Triggers.’

‘Yes, triggers. Things that make you remember the original trauma. Which, in your case, is very interesting. Because Bethan is writing letters now, which she did not do before, or at least if she has, you have never contacted anyone about it as far as we know. And Bethan appears out of your fugue states. Somehow, something has triggered her. Deep inside you, in the Bethan Avery part, you know much more about what’s happened to Katie Browne than you realize with your conscious mind.’

I still did not reply.

‘And,’ he said, turning to me, now actively trying to catch my gaze, ‘this girl’s life may depend on this knowledge, so I need you to try and work with us on this.’

I let him catch my gaze.

‘What’s this us?’ I said, with conscious cruelty. ‘You want me to work on this because you’ll get a fucking paper out of it and pay the mortgage, Martin. That’s what you want. That’s why you’ve been so much in evidence.’

There was a long second of molten silence between us.

His face was white, set. I had cut him, it seemed.

‘Margot, listen to me. I understand that you do not want to have this conversation. I understand that you’re running, and that you’ve been running all of your adult life, and that you believe, in your heart of hearts, that if you ever stop, you’ll die.’

‘I . . .’

‘You have made escaping what happened to you, consigning it to oblivion, your life’s great work. You have laboured and slaved to do it. You have made tremendous sacrifices in every aspect of your relationships so that you never have to be Bethan Avery again. And you have so very nearly succeeded.’ His hand nearest me moved, and then stilled, and I realized that he wanted to reach out, to touch me.

I glared at the offending limb.

‘But the goal is impossible, Margot. You can’t escape who you really are . . .’

Panic engulfed me. He understood nothing.

I had no idea who I really was, if I was not Margot.

Then hard on the heels of panic: fury.

I threw open the Range Rover door, hard enough to feel the joints creak. He was calling after me, ‘Margot, Margot,’ as I stormed towards the door of the cottage.

There was movement through the net curtain, as I banged on the door knocker sharply and stood back.

It did not take nearly so long for her to reach the door this time. Her fearlessness had gone, and her face through the crack was pale, the tiny creases of age in her lips compressed together, rumpling her skin.

‘Do you know me?’ I demanded.

No reply. I realized that she must have heard Martin calling my name, and that that name has unlocked something inside her, something feral and desperate that I would never have anticipated when I first met her.

‘I am asking you if you know me!’ I shouted at her, tears springing up within me. ‘Am I your daughter? Am I? AM I?’

Her eyes widened, her mouth compressed even further, but left a glint of yellow teeth – a snarl of fear, or perhaps agony. She was a perfect picture of pain.

‘How dare you! Get off my property this instant, before I call the police, do you hear me? How dare you!’

Then Martin was there, and he had hold of me, trying to pull me backwards while I fought and shrieked in his arms.

‘Am I your daughter? Am I your daughter?’

‘NO!’ she shouted, as though this single word contained all of her being. The door swung wide and I thought that she was going to launch herself at me in the perfection of her rage. ‘I don’t know who you are! And if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you!’ The white bun had fallen loose, the strands framing her furious face.

It was as if she had struck the blow already. I felt suddenly empty, slack, drained of blood.

‘I am so, so sorry,’ said Martin to her, dragging me back as I became limp in his arms. ‘Terribly sorry.’

I had ceased resisting him, and let him lead me back to the car and strap me in. There was only white noise in my head. Her resounding ‘NO!’ – her rejection – had blown all other sounds away.

She did not leave her door until we pulled away and she finally slammed it shut.

‘We need to get out of here before the police come. It’ll complicate things,’ he said, driving as quickly as he dared out of the drive. In the house opposite the cottage, a younger woman ran out on to her step, no doubt drawn by the shouting. With a slicing hand and a command she ushered back a small cloud of children who wanted to follow her, and in the rear-view mirror she hurried across the road, heading for Flora Bellamy’s house (Flora who is Margot’s mother, but not my mother), her face full of obvious concern. Halfway across she stopped, watching us go for an instant, before carrying on to Flora’s door.

My shame and horror were absolute.

As was my utter bewilderment.

‘This is impossible,’ I said earnestly. ‘Martin, this is a mistake.’

‘Oh, it was that all right,’ he replied. His eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and away again.

‘This . . . this can’t be happening. It can’t be real. Look, I have no memory of that woman. You’ve got the wrong . . .’

‘The Margot Bellamy that lived there had your National Insurance number, date of birth, your schools . . .’ He sighed, as though considering, and then seemed to calm down. ‘It’s Margot’s house. But you’re not Margot. That’s why you don’t remember Flora.’

He pulled over, outside the post office, and I was trembling now.

‘Listen—’ he said.

‘No, you listen. Do you seriously believe that for one moment, for one solitary second, that I would keep up some kind of fraud, keep up this pretence, if I thought Katie Browne’s life depended on it?’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Do you think I’m so selfish a monster that I would let a girl be raped and tortured and murdered just so I could keep my fucking shit job? Is that what you think is going on here? Is that what I look like to you?’

‘No, I don’t think that, but—’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Martin! None! When you say Bethan Avery to me, nothing comes back! Nothing! You sound like a crazy person! I swear to God, I have no memory of—’

‘I know,’ he said with sudden urgency, and he reached out and grabbed me hard by the wrists. ‘Listen. I know you think you don’t remember anything. You’ve spent years excising her and you’ve become very good at it. That’s not what I’m asking.’

I could only stare at him, dumbfounded, his hands warm on my skin.

‘I am asking you to take a leap of faith. To be open to the possibility that Bethan Avery may be in there, locked out of your conscious mind, and that everything that’s happened to you so far is because she is banging on the windows and desperately trying to tell you something. Something important.’

I took in a deep breath.

‘A leap of faith?’

‘That’s it. That’s all I want from you.’

I couldn’t speak, not straightaway. And when I did, my voice was tiny, like something I was hearing from the other side of some enormous distance.

‘All right.’ I licked my lips. ‘I have my doubts. But if you think it helps, I’ll try.’

He released me then, slowly.

‘All right,’ he said.

We paused then, our conflict exhausted.

‘So,’ I said. ‘How do we do this?’

‘I don’t know.’ He opened the door and pulled out his phone. ‘Wait here. I need to call Greta.’

He was on the phone for nearly fifteen minutes, during which time I watched him pacing urgently in front of the post office, listening far more than he was talking. Every so often our eyes met through the windshield and he offered me a wan smile.

While this happened, two thoughts circled one another relentlessly in my mind, like dogs chasing one another’s tails.

Firstly, this was all utterly impossible and insane. I cannot be Bethan Avery. Yet it had been proved impossible for me to be Margot.

Who am I? Who am I?

And alongside this, even if it wasn’t impossible or insane that I was Bethan Avery, or even if it was impossible and insane, but was still, nevertheless, true, then how were we going to find Katie Browne?

I felt sick, nauseous with anxiety, and just when I thought I could bear it no more, and was about to leap out of the car and grab him, he was suddenly jumping back into the driver’s seat, slamming the door after him.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘It’s difficult. There are three ways to treat you. There’s psychotherapy, which takes months. There’s hypnosis . . .’

I widened my eyes. Of course.

‘But with such an entrenched trauma, it’s more likely to produce false memories than real ones.’

‘I don’t understand . . .’

‘The past is a country you really, really don’t want to visit, Margot.’ He turned to me. ‘Events have proved this. Greta thinks you’d need hypnotherapy under a chemical trance. It’s all very specialized, and very high risk.’

I shrugged. ‘If it helps, I don’t care. I’ll do it.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ he said, starting the car. ‘They need to find someone with the expertise to perform the procedure, and then convince them that the result will be worth the potential risk to you.’

‘Risk to me?’

He nodded, not looking at me, pulling out into the road. ‘Yes.’

‘What kind of risk? I mean, comparatively speaking, how bad can it be considering what we’re up against?’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t get into it. It’s pointless until she finds someone prepared to help us. She’s got a few names in mind, and a couple of them are in Cambridge, so with any luck we’ll hear back from her soon.’

‘What do we do until then?’

He had turned out of the village and was heading north fast. For my own part I was glad to see the back of Wastenley.

The pause was so long that for a moment I thought he’d forgotten my question, until he said, ‘We could do things while we’re waiting. We might find something useful there.’

‘Like what?’

‘We could look for triggers.’ That bright green gaze was on me again. ‘It can’t hurt.’

I nodded, as if I understood.

‘And where do we start?’

He turned back to the road, and his smile was small but genuine, spiked with camaraderie, and perhaps something else.

‘The best place. We start at the beginning.’

The clear blue sky clouded over as we headed back to Cambridge, but it had become a little warmer.

‘Snow,’ I told Martin as he punched through the digital buttons, trying to get a radio station that played actual music.

‘You think?’ he glanced upwards, peering at the clouds.

‘A fiver says it snows tonight.’

‘You’re on.’

With a burst of noise, my mobile leapt into life. A picture of Lily in Halloween costume – a vivid blue-green mermaid with shells in her hair – was glowing on the screen.

I swallowed hard and swiped to accept the call. ‘Hello there. I’m surprised you’re still speaking to me.’

‘Margot! I just got your message, are you all right?’

Well, no, I wasn’t all right, but it was too much to get into over the phone. ‘I’m fine. I’m with Martin. We’re heading back to Cambridge.’

‘The police have been here. They’re asking about Katie Browne again . . .’

‘I know.’

This stymied her. How could I possibly know?

‘They think it’s . . .’

But Martin was gesturing, drawing a finger across his throat. I understood immediately. Lily would share this all over the staff room, who would share it all over Cambridge. It might do no harm, but better safe than sorry.

‘Sorry, Lils, I meant I knew the police had called. I didn’t know there were new leads on poor Katie. Look, the battery on my phone’s dying so I’ll call you when I get back, all right?’

There was a pause. She could tell I was lying about the phone, I was sure, and she was hurt. Perhaps she thought we were still fighting.

‘And,’ I sighed, trying to put it into words, ‘I just wanted to say that I was sorry about last night.’

She didn’t reply for a minute. ‘But you were right,’ she said. ‘You were attacked . . . the police said . . .’

‘I know, I know – what I mean is, I’m sorry I stormed out like that. We’re good friends and we should have been able to talk about it, and if I had, well, maybe last night wouldn’t have happened.’ I rubbed my eye. ‘You know, you’ve been a good mate, and before . . . well, before things kick off properly, I just wanted you to know that.’

‘Margot, what are you talking about?’ Her voice was still, quiet. I had alarmed her.

‘I can’t say now. When I get back I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’

‘Yeah, maybe. But not as much trouble as some. I’ve got to go, Lils. Bye.’

I hit the button to end the call.

‘Recognize this?’

‘No.’

‘You mean you would drive miles and go to London and undertake all of this trouble and danger, but you were never tempted to visit the neighbourhood where it happened, even though it was only ten minutes away in the car?’

‘Apparently not,’ I said coldly.

He opened his mouth, about to take me to task, then stopped, his jaw clicking shut. There was something in him then, a glint of pity.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry, Margot. I keep forgetting. Of course you wouldn’t come here. You’re always running away from all this. You’re the Red Queen from “Through the Looking Glass”. You have to run with all your might, just to stand still.’

I didn’t know how to reply to this, so I said nothing.

We were west of Cambridge, further west than the sumptuous gardens and greens of Barton, with its multi-million-pound houses. This was a poor, lonely little pocket of council housing, forested in regular rows of planted trees, a desert island before the Fens begin again, spreading flat and green-grey as an ocean under a massive gunmetal sky, which was ramping up its threat of unseasonal snow.

Beneath these clouds the village itself huddled unprepossessingly, as though cold in a cheap coat too thin for the weather. There was a drab single-storey prefab community centre, a GP’s office, a late-night Co-Op whose outer bin was filled with empty bottles and crisp packets. The streets and drives wound in around themselves in mathematically correct curves, giving the impression the place had grown organically rather than been dreamed up whole by a council architect.

Greta had not called back yet.

The buildings themselves were mostly maisonettes – flats pretending to be houses, stacked in long terraces and made of pale brick and brown-painted timber. Brass numbers adorned some of the glass doors, but many had been replaced, or fallen off, leaving just the shadow numerals behind.

‘So, this is her street, is it?’

I was starting to get angry again. After my failure to recognize Flora Bellamy, I was now about to fail to recognize yet another putative childhood home. This was happening because this was not my childhood home. This Bethan Avery stuff was madness. Yes, writing the letters was clearly wrong, and likely to ruin me, even though I had no idea I was doing it. And Martin was no doubt on to something when he identified my personal blindness as being borne of a personal darkness. But this was just wasting time. More to the point, it was humiliating me.

I bit my lip.

I had promised him a leap of faith.

‘Yes,’ he said, determined to remain blithe and neutral. He pointed to a house on the corner, with a scrawny garden. ‘You lived there.’

‘Did I now?’

‘Yes,’ he said, unmoved by my obvious, restless anger. ‘You did.’

I had promised.

‘Do you want to get nearer?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Margot . . .’

‘Fine, let’s do it.’ I stalked off towards the house, with the rolling, determined gait of someone about to put a Molotov cocktail through the bay window at the front. What the hell was the matter with me? I’d agreed to this. I . . .

‘I’m not trying to be a bitch, you know,’ I told him.

‘I know.’

‘I’m . . . I’m frightened.’

‘I know.’

‘I mean, if it’s true, it turns out that everything I have told people about myself, everything I have told myself about myself, is a lie.’ I thought about this for a moment longer. ‘In fact, even if it isn’t true, it’s all lies anyway, isn’t it?’

He didn’t reply, but waited for me to speak as we mounted the pavement and paused before the shrivelled lawn.

‘I have no idea who I am any more.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s not a state of mind that encourages relaxed positivity.’

‘I can see how that would be.’

We stood there, side-by-side, like patient ghosts. There was no movement from within the house.

‘Do you want to try and get in?’ I asked.

‘What?’ He looked shocked.

‘I don’t mean break in. I meant knock, ask to look around. Perhaps it will help. If we’re going to do this . . .’

‘They won’t let us. When I started researching the case I called by and was given my marching orders. I think the same people live there.’

I frowned. ‘What people?’

‘The Gallaghers, they were called. They thought I was a ghoul. Fat angry man, skinny angry wife, three angry kids – mind you, the kids are probably old enough now for their own houses. They got this place after Peggy, Bethan’s grandmother, was killed here – well, attacked here. She died in hospital. Can’t blame the new family really. They had all sorts calling on them in the early days. Everyone wants to see the murder house.’

‘Peggy,’ I said, as though trying out the name. Nothing answers me from within.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk to the top of the road and back. At least we’ll get a chance to stretch our legs.’

I nodded. In silence we ambled up the winding street to the nearby sounds of traffic.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked me.

I shook my head.

‘You’re shivering.’

He was right, I was. ‘It won’t kill me.’

We reached the junction, and the pair of us gazed disconsolately around ourselves. I was tired, so I perched my bottom on the low road sign and crossed my legs.

When I glanced up, Martin had an odd expression on his face.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Do you often do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Sit on a sign like that.’

I opened my mouth, closed it. Because I didn’t. It’s something kids do when they hang around after school.

‘When was the last time you did that?’ he asked me.

I didn’t know. And now I was self-conscious, confused. I could trust none of my feelings or memories.

But I had promised him a leap of faith.

I tried to recall when I had done this in the past and realized that I couldn’t. In fact, I now felt faintly ridiculous. At my age, it’s the sort of thing you would do if you were walking home drunk and needed a little rest.

Indeed, as I sat there, I could see a balding man in a dark blue car on the main road slowing down to stare at me. I glared back in challenge and he instantly sped off.

The edge of the sign was damp and probably crawling with mites, the old wood behind the plastic facing decaying and likely to leave dark stains on my trousers. If one of the kids from school were to see me, I would be an object of derision.

And yet . . .

And yet . . .

It felt right.

‘What are you thinking?’

I was thinking that the ancient Greeks believed madness was sent to a person by the gods. Madness leads to prophecy. To be sane is merely human, says Plato in his ‘Phaedrus’, but to be mad is to be touched by the divine.

Martin had been wrong. He should be interested in Greek philosophers.

I will stop second-guessing myself. I will let my madness lead me.

‘I’ve been here before,’ I said.

‘You’re sure?’

I nodded, rose to my feet. ‘Yes. Very.’

Martin’s phone rang suddenly.